I stepped out of the Hokage's tower in a mood fouler than week-old milk, and the substantial mission pay sitting pretty in my pocket did fuck-all to improve it.
Sure, they'd bumped our clusterfuck in the Land of Waves up to S-rank — that was enough money that made even a cynical bastard like me do mental calculations about compound interest — but the real payment had been something else entirely.
They'd grilled me like I was the main course at a barbecue festival. Shikaku and Inoichi had taken turns dissecting every decision I'd made, every kunai I'd thrown, every breath I'd taken, every fucking word I had said.
And they had been rather insidious. They'd framed their questions like I'd waltzed into the Land of Wave looking for someone important to kill. Like I was the instigator, the problem, the loose cannon that needed to be put back in its box.
All those naive, delusional hopes I'd been unintentionally nursing got thrown out the window and stomped on for good measure.
It pissed me off. But what pissed me off even more was that I was pissed off at all.
I didn't want to sound like a bitch, but I felt... betrayed. And that realization just made me angrier at myself. When the hell had I gotten so comfortable in this cutthroat world that I'd let my guard down enough to feel betrayal?
Betrayal only comes after trust. Since when had my foolish brain started trusting shinobi—literal professional killers trained from childhood to lie, manipulate, and sacrifice anything for the mission?
I sighed and rubbed my face hard enough to hurt. Old Tomoe had been right all along. I should've been more careful about who I gave my trust to. Seemed I'd dropped my guard at some point without even noticing.
"Woooow, Sensei. I know you're tough, but even you can't win against endless questions, huh?"
I turned toward the voice. Sakura was standing beside the entrance to the Hokage tower, one hand perched on her hip, a small smile playing on her lips. The afternoon light caught her just right, outlined the curve of her waist where her hand rested, and highlighted the strip of pale skin between her red top and skirt. Her thighs were smooth and slightly toned from half-hearted training, just muscular enough to be interesting without losing that soft femininity. And those lips, curved in that knowing little smile, pink and full and—
Fate had an ugly sense of humor. Throwing at me such a validation-starved girl with a pretty face and a mess of insecurities when I was this pissed off and in need of a distraction. A bone, neatly wrapped in emotional issues. Oh, thank you, universe. You shouldn't have.
"Sakura," I said, keeping my tone light despite the mood churning in my gut. "What're you doing here? Would've figured Kakashi would've dragged you all somewhere to celebrate your first S-rank mission by now."
She laughed, but it came out awkward and sheepish, and I caught the way her shoulders tensed slightly at the mention of the mission ranking. Probably feeling self-conscious about having done mostly fuck-all during the whole ordeal. Though knowing Sakura, it had less to do with actual self-awareness and more to do with her chronic insecurity.
"We were about to," she said, tucking a strand of pink hair behind her ear. "But Naruto insisted you should come too, and since you were taking forever, and then Kakashi-sensei said we'd, uh, do it another time."
Mmh, Kakashi most likely got bored of waiting and vanished, Naruto got hungry and wandered off, Sai went to be weird somewhere else. Textbook Team Whatever-Number-They-Are-Now.
"I wanted to wait for you because..." She hesitated, then pushed forward with that stubborn determination she had. "I wanted to show you my progress. With the training you gave me."
I hummed noncommittally. This girl really didn't have much care much, did she? Here I was, fresh from getting verbally eviscerated by the village's top interrogators and strategists, and she wanted to add more work to my plate. Typical Sakura—selfish without even realizing it, so wrapped up in her own needs that she couldn't see past them. She had a sort of thoughtless recklessness that got kunoichi killed and also made them incredibly easy to keep on a leash.
But to be fair to her, she didn't know where to find me otherwise, didn't have a way to contact me. And I was her teacher now. She was my responsibility.
Responsibility, however, didn't mean I wouldn't grab what I wanted from her.
"Perfect." I smiled, letting my earlier irritation melt into something more easygoing. "I've been wondering how your iryonin training went with that card I made for you. Find any problems with the books I recommended?" I paused, then added with a slight smirk, "Hope the library staff didn't give you too much trouble with my signature on the permission slip."
Her face brightened immediately. "Everything went well! The books are really detailed, and the training card helps me track my progress. Thank you so much, Sensei." The gratitude in her voice was genuine, almost painfully so.
"Good," I said, letting some approval leak into my tone. Her shoulders straightened another millimeter. "If any of them give you trouble about the authorization again, you tell me their names so I can terrify them politely. And when you're done with those, or if you see other texts you're curious about, you come to me first. I'll get you access, if I think you're ready."
The permission I'd filed for her wasn't blanket, just specific texts I'd selected. If she wanted to expand her reading, she'd need to come through me. It was a subtle thing, building that dependence, creating a framework where I was the gatekeeper to her advancement. Every favor I granted her would stack up in her mind as debt, as gratitude, as proof that I was investing in her when no one else would.
"Thank you, Sensei," she said again, and this time a pretty pink blush colored her cheeks. She looked down, suddenly shy, and I could see the mix of embarrassment and gratitude playing across her face.
Dependence and gratitude, wrapped up in scholarly kindness.
"So, should we head to a training field? Or maybe the library? I can show you what I've learned so far."
"We could do that." I nodded. "Or, hear me out, we could hit two birds with one stone and grab some lunch. You walk me through what you've worked on while we eat. It'll be on me. Consider it a special mission celebration for…"
I stepped closer as I said it, closing enough distance that I drifted into her space without making a big show of it. She had to tilt her chin up a little to keep my eyes, and when she realized that, she immediately looked away, ears going pink.
"…for my very first official apprentice," I finished more quietly. "Just the two of us."
Sakura didn't step back. She should have; I was well inside the boundary of respectful teacher-student distance. Instead, she reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear with jerky fingers, the movement betraying her more than her words ever did.
"Y-yeah. That sounds... that sounds good," she said, aiming for casual and landing somewhere closer to flustered.
Look at that. The loudmouthed, forehead-sensitive, Sasuke-obsessed brat could be shy when she wanted something. It sent blood rushing south.
I had the urge to grab her face right there and kiss her until she was gasping, until that pink blush spread down her neck and chest. The urge good men fought off, and bad men indulged. I wasn't a good man, but I was a responsible one, or tried to be, which complicated things.
I held myself back. Not here. Not yet. I had to fulfill my duty as her teacher first before I could enjoy the cake I was baking.
I turned and started walking, and she fell into step beside me. "So what do you want to eat?"
— — — — — —
We had what amounted to a date in all but name.
We went to Yakiniku Q first. Usually, the meal was supposed to be the main event of a date, reserved for the middle or the end, but dates didn't really have rules, and I was hungry as hell.
After that, we strolled through the village. Sakura talked about the issues she'd faced with the literature and the iryonin training card I'd made her. Once she got going, the words spilled out of her like she'd been bottling them up for days. Chakra exercises, diagrams she'd copied until her hand cramped, how the diagnostic flow charts in one scroll contradicted the simplified version in the textbook.
It solidified why she had good results at the Academy, but was, uh, rather average in the field.
She'd made more progress with reading theory than with practical application, even though she'd started with the practical first. But I hadn't been soft rectifying her errors. Part of it was to correct her, part of it was to tickle that disciplining string she had going on.
Each correction made her flinch, but I always followed it with something positive. An approving hum when she recovered quickly, a nod when she rattled off a term she shouldn't have known yet, a short "good" when she caught herself mid-mistake and fixed it without prompting.
The push-pull kept her riding that thin line between shame and pride. It was cruel and effective in brat taming.
Throughout the afternoon, I'd been gradually increasing physical contact with her. Testing the waters, seeing how much conditioning had stuck from before, reacquainting her with my touch after the time apart.
It started innocuously. A hand on her lower back to guide her through a crowded street. Then my arm brushing against hers as we walked side by side. A touch to her shoulder when I was making a point about chakra control. My fingers grazing her wrist when I gestured toward something. Each touch lingered a little longer than necessary; each one claimed a little more territory.
At first, she'd tensed up, that initial freeze response of someone not quite sure what was happening. Old associations, maybe. Old memories. She wasn't stupid; she knew exactly whose hand had been on her mother not so long ago.
But she warmed up quickly, her body language opening, becoming accepting and then positively receptive. Not as receptive as Ino—I didn't think anybody was as shameless and eager as that girl—but Sakura was parched for a certain kind of attention.
My touch didn't just warm her skin; it quieted a noisy, lonely part of her mind that had always shouted for a boy's notice. It was sad and amusing in equal measure. This stubborn little thing, so wrapped up in her own fantasies that she chased every scrap of attention as if it proved she mattered.
We toured some of the prettier spots in Konoha. We stopped by the river and skipped stones for a while. She was terrible at it, her stones plopping into the water after one or two bounces, and I showed her the proper wrist flick, standing close behind her, my hand over hers to demonstrate the motion.
Then we wandered through the food stalls. She was a girl, so of course she loved sweet stuff. I bought her dango, then mochi, then some fluffy dorayaki. She protested half-heartedly about me spending money on her, but not enough to actually stop me.
We even helped an old lady who got her purse stolen right in front of us. I would've normally ignored that kind of thing, but I felt performative with a girl beside me. Show off a little, play the hero, let her see me be strong and capable and Good. Even when you didn't need to prove anything, there was something satisfying about it.
The thief was some civilian punk who clearly didn't realize he'd just fucked up. I had him on the ground with his arm twisted behind his back before he'd made it ten feet.
That was also when we ran into the original third member of Team Seven, complete with his edgy, brooding face and that look that said the world had personally offended him by existing.
Sasuke Uchiha. Perfect. Just what I needed to top off this spectacular fucking day.
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